I was under the impression that だ was the informal of です but for informal speech it was often omitted.
This is from the human Japanese app on iOS.
I learned it that way too from class. だ is the informal version of です, but informal speech will often require omitting だ. Perhaps the key is to recognize that you cannot simply replace all instances of です with だ when converting formal to informal.
Human Japanese does a bit of a history lesson and apparently だ used to be で ある but over time was shortened to だ.
It explains why the past tense of だ is だった (from であった)
である still exists as the copula in formal writing. The である writing form also includes a bunch of words and grammar structures which are pretty much unique to it.
Discussion of Chapter 9 starts here.
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Oh, already. Sooner than I expected.
Finished my first read-through! Love how the TV doesn’t speak with furigana, since it’s not intended for Yotsuba’s hearing. Or something.
One question, though, and one I’ve been wondering for a long while, with manga in general: page 44, frames one and two, what’s with that aspirated え? How do you say it? How do you even type it?
It’s already 11:19am, Sunday here in Oz…
Every character seems to speak with kanji corresponding to their levels of education and understanding, like to indicate nuances between same-sounding words that have slightly different meanings in kanji. It’s a really nice touch.
I’ve seen it in some other manga, too, sometimes on other characters, like あ. It only ever seems to appear in the context of a surprised reaction. I don’t think there’s a standard IDE way to input it, but if you have an interface that lets you add dakuten to arbitrary characters, like a typesetting system, you can use that.
Like other dakuten, I presume it means you should try to voice the sound, like try to engage your vocal chords when pronouncing it, make it “throaty”.
I read the whole volume when I was on vacation in November, and this chapter was great. So random and hilarious.
Voiced, rather than aspirated - I’ve certainly heard it used in this context, but can only describe it as loud or emphatic え.
Or, for those with lower skill levels, confusing… thank goodness for the reading pack (“No, it doesn’t make sense”).
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I’m in Australia too. 
I guess I was anticipating that the next chapter would start in US time.
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By the way, the diacritic marks on the kana to voice them are called dakuten (濁点) for the two small marks and handakuten (半濁点) for the circle.
As for saying it, this is just a guess, but I hear it as “ehhhh” in an exasperated way. I can’t really explain it well, but I can hear it in my head and can say it myself from all the anime I’ve watched.
As for typing it, I googled え濁点 and it seems like there’s no way to type it since it’s not a real kana. Multiple sites suggested using a quote after the kana, like え゛.
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It’s 1pm in Japan now, so we’re right on time (間に合います、 as I recently learned).
I think someone could basically understand no japanese and still find this chapter funny just from the pictures. Also, what are you guys going to do if you continue onto volume 3 after this? There was only a reading pack for the first two volumes.
Oh yes, that’s the word - my bad. An aspirated え would be へ.
Surely “ehhhh” in an exasperated way would be へえ～. Maybe?
See, this is why we need a Yotsubato anime, so we can hear what things sound like.
Chapter 9 was the hardest thing I encountered, by far, until the finishing chapter in volume 4.
If readers can pick up enough vocab from studying these chapters, they should be able to keep up, or at least know enough to understand what words need to be looked up; the grammar doesn’t get any more complex.
I did still find myself checking one of the English versions every three pages or so in volumes 3 and 4, though.
-edit-
I originally said chapter 8 when I meant this one, chapter 9. The gangster-speak made my progress really slow back when I first read this chapter.
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Speaking of which, I checked the English version for this chapter, and one choice of translation confused me a bit. Page 37, final frame, Yotsuba says いのちをたいせつに, which I took to be some kind of truncated “you should treasure your life”. ADV, however, have gone for “You must be tired of livin’.” Did I translate that wrong, or is ADV just going for flavour rather than accuracy?
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What are you guys going to do if you continue onto volume 3 after this? There was only a reading pack for the first two volumes.
Cry a lot, I think. Someone’s going to have to get much better at reading.
I tried my hand at translating again, but there were a few sticky areas.
お見通し（おみとおし）, for example. Everything translates it directly as "prospect/outlook.
However, looking up the verb 見通す is when the “to see through” meaning shines through.
I think the other hard places were Asagi’s [page 50 sentence] 「今ちょっと銃を突き付けられた。」and Jumbo’s last sentence [page 56] 「復讐（ふくしゅう）は何も生まねーよなー？」
Does Asagi mean “Right now, I’ve been a little prodded by a gun”? Or perhaps she means “I need a moment. I’ve been prodded by a gun.” I think that the translation changes depending on whether or not you can put a period after 「今ちょっと」.
For Jumbo, I think he means “nothing is produced by revenge”, but it’s posed as a question. For that reason, my translation would be “Revenge produces nothing, you know?”, but I’m not sure why it works that way.
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Your translation’s how I would have interpreted it, too.
Yen Press seems to agree: “You oughta treasure yer life.”
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